Senators 3, Kings 2

Kovalev got his milestone point when he scored on a power play midway through the first period and assisted on Jason Spezza's go-ahead goal in the third for his 1,001st point to send the Ottawa Senators to a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night.

"It's kind of a unique way, you get your 1,000th point, you break your stick and then hit the 10-minute mark exactly so it's like 1,000 points, so I thought that was just a joke they put on the board," said Kovalev, who became the 76th NHL player to reach the 1,000-point milestone with his sixth goal exactly 10 minutes in.

He joined Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Mogilny as the third Russian player to reach the milestone.

"It's kind of hard for me to imagine but I'm just really proud," Kovalev said. "I just checked and there are like 20 text messages from my all my friends and family. It's a good achievement, I just don't know how to describe it."

Spezza scored his sixth goal of the season to restore Ottawa's one-goal lead. Milan Michalek drew the Senators even at 2 with his fifth goal late in the second.

Pascal Leclaire made 28 saves in his first start since Nov. 11.

Anze Kopitar and Ryan Smyth scored for Los Angeles, which has lost four of five.

"It was close," Smyth said. "Obviously it's a tough call for him to make when he's in the corner. It was pretty tough, but I think it was probably a good goal. But we had some chances early on and it shouldn't have come down to that."

A moment of silence was observed in memory of longtime NHL coach Pat Burns, who died Friday after a long battle with cancer, and Daron Richardson. It was the Senators' first home game since the 14-year-old daughter of Senators assistant coach Luke Richardson committed suicide on Nov. 12.

Three Ottawa forwards played milestone games. Chris Neil and Jarkko Ruutu each appeared in their 600th game and Michalek played his 400th.

Neil fought with Kevin Westgarth in the second. He later left the game with an upper body injury and did not return.

On a night of milestones Kovalev's 1,000th career point trumped the rest, both in significance and style.

The 37-year-old Russian broke his stick as he drove a slap shot from the right side past Quick. The milestone puck ended up in the net while the blade of his stick skittered against the boards behind the goal.

"It was definitely good to get that off the bat, and kind of in a unique way, to break a stick," Kovalev said. "In my museum when you look at the stick it won't be that hard to find that 1,000th point stick. I shot it too hard. I really wanted to get that through and if it didn't break, it probably would have broke the net."

Kovalev stood up from his seat on the Senators' bench to acknowledge a standing ovation from the crowd. Earlier in the period, he was helped back to the bench after an open-ice hit by Smyth.

Tied at 2 after Michalek scored with 56 seconds left in the second, Los Angeles' Wayne Simmonds put a shot off the left post on a power play early in the third.

Spezza put Ottawa ahead again 11:19 into the third. The Senators' center drove the left side and deked his way around defenseman Matt Greene before snapping a shot past Quick.

"They had a long shift out there and I had good speed wide and I got the goalie to bite a little bit," Spezza said.

Kopitar tied it at 1 with an unassisted effort for his seventh goal 16:17 into the first.

Smyth put the Kings up 2-1 with his seventh on a power play 7:52 into the second.

Notes: Kovalev, who has 418 goals and 583 assists in 1,249 regular-season games, began his NHL career with New York in 1992-93 and won a Stanley Cup with the Rangers in 1994. He has also played for Pittsburgh and Montreal. ... Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson recorded his 1,000th point with a hat trick goal into an empty net in a 4-2 win in Buffalo on Oct. 22.